The trouble is that climate change is like a slow moving train from which we think we will be able to get out of the way. Warming of 0.2C per decade with wild weather and 2.8mm a year of sea level rise doesn't seem like much but it will be by the time today's children are adults. Reluctance to change now means that we are creating a more difficult world for those ahead compared to the recent past. I strongly suspect that PM Rudd will not do anything (besides tokenism) to reduce our dependence on coal the main greenhouse culprit. However several independent researchers conclude that even economically mineable coal will run out decades earlier than expected, with Australia's reserves providing a temporary cushion for other countries.

We need to immediately move to low carbon energy, efficient transport, resilient agriculture and appropriate population. Unfortunately the every-day-is-Christmas mentality means that as soon as a new oil well or gold vein is discovered it immediately proves the party can keep going forever. Just look at the children and ask what legacy they will inherit.

The media is also to blame for the unwillingness of politicians and governments to act. How often do you see an important decision taken for overall community benefit but the media unmercilessly focuses on the individual or tiny minority who are adversely affected?

The article is absolutely right. On climate change, Rudd is rudderless and will do something urgently sometime next year. Maybe. But why bother when China and India who have afforded themselves the luxury of large populations will do nothing about it because they claim they are developing nations. They are not developing nations. They are merely rapidly industrialising nations and are producing far more CO2 and other pollutants than Australia.

The only comfort I can offer is the long term view; when our wretched species has finally done away with itself, it will be replaced by something else, as happens with all species, and life will go on until the sun becomes a red giant and swallows this good earth.

Fancy quoting George Monbiot (a 2 bit journalist)....sets the tone of the article.

"We all know the problems but individual selfishness means we are not prepared to become part of the solution."
No no no!, not the Final Solution.

"That is why governments still approve the opening of new mines and coal fired power stations"
OMG! not new mines...we're doomed.

"The trouble is that climate change is like a slow moving train..."
Look out, here come the cliches...

"Warming of 0.2C per decade with wild weather and 2.8mm a year of sea level rise doesn't seem like much..."
Its not. The warming has stopped in most parts of the world. Wild weather, whats new? 2.8mm per year big deal...what was the rate of sea level rise before global warming was "invented".

"The only comfort I can offer is the long term view; when our wretched species has finally done away with itself, it will be replaced by something else, as happens with all species, and life will go on until the sun becomes a red giant and swallows this good earth."
And in the scheme of such things it won't matter much either way as all life on the planet will be extinguished, why bother?

In recent months a number of distinguished scientists have questioned the hypothesis of anthropogenic induced global warming. These include over 400 signatures to a US senate report and over a hundred signatures to a letter to Ban Ki moon.

Kellie Tranter admits to being a non scientist. That in itself is no crime. I agree that there are many other areas of learning and scholarship other then science. However, Kellie makes the claim that any person scientist or non scientist alike who raises legitimate questions about the basis of global warming theory is just motivated by greed. That is a claim, that is so vast and sweeping as to be totally unsupportable.

The nearest analogy to the claim of greed is a preacher claiming that all non believers are sinners and will be punished by being cast into the fires of hell.
Why one could with even greater justification claim, (although I know it not to be absolutely true), that all lawyers are motivated by greed.

In fact one could even go as far as to claim that any body with an opinion different from mine is motivated by self interest

“governments are controlled by the brothers of the men who control the corporate businesses, so governments are unlikely to decide optimally".

That is a theory unproven or tested.

Governments are there to represent the views of the electorate, that is whay we commonly name the parliament a “house of representatives”.

The notion that they are “brothers” to corporate business managers may or maynot be fact but it is irrelevant to the topic.

Whilst democracies, founded on principle of universal suffrage, are supposedly, a poor, imperfect system of government, it beats all the alternatives, where the government is not managed by representatives of the electorate but by some other rule of appointment, like bribery, the military or divine right of kings.

That some of the climate lobby believe they are, somehow entitled to exercise what amounts to the “Divine Right of Kings”, to impose their will over the rest of us, clearly displays the arrogance associated with narcissism and clearly recognisable as a mental disorder.

Even as a libertarian, I can see how we would all be better off locking up the meddlers, for their own safety and just getting on with the life without these delusional interventionists who seek the manipulation and control of us all by circumventing elected political representation